Methadone clinic moves in next door in Parkdale

Strickland Avenue is a quiet gentrifying stretch of homes in Parkdale, hidden from the noise of Queen Street which lies a few bends down the road.

There’s a ballet school on one corner and a photography studio on another, but it’s the recently vacated building at 21 Strickland that has residents — many of them professionals, lawyers, architects, and software engineers — voicing concerns to their local councillor.

The building will soon be home to a methadone clinic operated by Breakaway Addiction Services. The organization offers a variety of other services, including a food bank, clothing exchange and outreach programs, but neighbours are mostly concerned about the clinic, where addicts will be treated for their opiate dependence on an outpatient basis. “Everyone is really concerned,” said Stanley Lidon, a 42 year-old assistant location manager in the film industry, who lives across the street. “It’s been done very slyly, it’s been done without any consultation to the neighborhood … and we’re going to need some answers from the city as to how can this happen, and what the city going to do with regards to the values of our properties.”

Ward 14 councillor Gord Perks said the clinic has a legal right to move into the neighbourhood.

“It’s their own business where they establish themselves and the place they bought they don’t require any zoning permission or committee of adjustment approval, so it’s entirely legal for them to just go in,” he said.

The move came as a shock to most residents of Strickland Avenue, who only learned of their new neighbour Wednesday night, three weeks before the new location is set to open.

“I was informed from another friend of mine who is sort of active in the area … she heard about that clinic coming in pretty much next door to me, and informed me right away. So this has all happened very recently,” said Aki Kyrou. “That’s when I started contacting people on the street andinforming them, and no one knew anything about what was going on.”

In an attempt to come to a solution, Strickland Avenue residents held a meeting on Thursday night attended by Coun. Perks as well as representatives from Breakaway Addiction Services. A few dozen concerned neighbours shuffled into Mr. Kyrou’s garage shortly after 9 p.m., where words like ‘unfair’ and ‘shocking’ were passed around.

After a few opening words from Mr. Kyrou, a representative from Breakaway addressed the crowd to explain the clinic’s mandate of helping those struggling with addiction, which was met with little sympathy.

While Mr. Kyrou tried to keep the meeting organized, many of those attending came loaded with questions they answered.

While many residents are disappointed by the lack of warning, Dennis Long, executive director of Breakaway Addiction Services, says he has been meeting with local representatives in an attempt to get the word out.

“We were working our way through a community information process which started with a meeting with the local councillor, and then I met with local representatives of the Parkdale Residential Association and the Parkdale BIA a week or so ago, and through those contacts I was trying to identify folks who would be good to meet with in the immediate neighbourhood, and was unable to get those meetings together.

“I’m trying to make sure this facility does not create any problems in the neighborhood,” he said.